This master's thesis focuses on five fiction films directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne: La promesse (1996), Rosetta (1999), Le fils (2002), L’enfant (2005) and Le silence de Lorna (2008). This research aims to analyze the problem of “the real” through these five films, arguing that although the real can’t be represented (Jacques Lacan), it can be targeted — and expressed — through the cinematic apparatus of the Dardenne.
In the first chapter, we explain how the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne deploy a new fictionality that blurs the boundaries between document and fiction. In the second chapter, we place the Dardenne’s approach in the context of modern cinema and analyze the aesthetic aspects that set out the problem of the real in their cinema. The third chapter is dedicated to the Dardennian actor, a proper "body character" (Gilles Deleuze), who also participates in the expression of the non obvious character of the real.